


The Names My Father Gave Me

by girl_wonder



Category: Boondock Saints
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-02-27
Updated: 2006-02-27
Packaged: 2017-10-13 08:41:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/135342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/girl_wonder/pseuds/girl_wonder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He goes gently in his sleep, not fighting, and that's much better than Conner would have pegged him for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Names My Father Gave Me

  
  
  
  
**Entry tags:**   
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[boondock saints](http://girl-wonder.livejournal.com/tag/boondock%20saints), [fanfic](http://girl-wonder.livejournal.com/tag/fanfic)  
  
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_**Fic: Boondock Saints: The Names My Father Gave Me**_  
This is for [](http://dopplegl.livejournal.com/profile)[**dopplegl**](http://dopplegl.livejournal.com/) because he's wonderful and he's one of the most amazing people I've met here. Also, he and I are going to have children. I AM THE COBRA COMMANDER!

Title: The Names My Father Gave Me  
Author: fryadvocate  
Fandom: Boondock Saints  
Thanks go out to Di because she didn't run screaming into the night when I showed her what had to have been the most grammatically incorrect first draft ever and Kass because she was totally up to help out when I was desperate.

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Summary: He goes gently in his sleep, not fighting, and that's much better than Conner would have pegged him for.

It's in Chicago that their father passes. He goes gently in his sleep, not fighting, and that's much better than Conner would have pegged him for. After their blackened wings were spread, after they had started every day washed clean with holy water and ended their labor with the blood of the worst of all sinners on their hands - red on pale skin, red on black tattoos, hands upheld to the air, like Christ seeking answers from above - after that, they had all assumed that their deaths would be sanguineous.

Theirs is a story of truth in legend, truth in falsehood, truth in the pain of kneeling in the back of a church with fresh injuries bandaged and only a few hours old. They live in shadow and darkness, but exist in the reality of television crews and word of mouth passing this story to the ears of children and criminals:

Be good, for God has grown tired again of how sinful his favored have grown. He has let loose his angels, unleashed his soldiers, and the last time he did that, cities razed themselves to the ground. Be good, lest they come for you. Be good, lest they find your soul worthy of sacrifice, your city worthy of slaughter.

Children are given a kiss. Criminals are given a rough look of warning from their fellows.

Conner has heard his share of their legends; Murphy's heard more because Murphy is a laughing drunk and plays the part of a new criminal well. When they go to new cities, and visit new bars, they travel with the lowest of the low, the men who beat their wives, the pimps who kill their trade, the jittery men who touch children, and among all of these, Murphy will sit with a beer and listen to them talk. He's Irish in the way that Americans want the Irish to be, friendly, willing to listen, and always on their side.

Later, he will press the barrel of a gun to men's heads, pray over them with the knowledge that they deserve to die. Still, when they first meet, he will drink with them, get the lay of the land, find out whose sins are worst, whose sins just need time to become the worst. Murphy laughs with the alcohol, slaps the backs of evil men, and pretends that he won't kill them all.

Murphy drinks like they still have all the time in the world, like his soul is clear and the worst he will do all day is pack meat, and cheat Conner out of ten dollars on a bet. When he downs a glass of whiskey in one go, he believes that it is the least of their sins. He's right. Conner knows it's right that they kill these men, put down the children of God that have strayed from the path of righteousness.

Some days, though, he looks up, and he thinks that it isn't fair two men should bear the weight of so much -- it isn't fair that _he_ should bear the weight of judgement on his shoulders, like he's borne Murphy's weight so often. It seems like judgement should weigh so much more than his brother, and it does, most days, but on days when he's carrying his brother home and there's more blood from his brother than from sinners on his shirt -- on his face, on his clothes, on his hands -- then the weight of his brother is so much more heavy than justice. Carrying Murphy like he's carried meat, like he's carried ropes, like he's carried so many other things, makes the weight of justice seem transient, something false he's made up because it's Murphy's blood that he's spitting out of his mouth.

Murphy's blood is his blood is his father's blood. He tries that sometimes, but he knows that despite the fucking blood, there's more separating his father from them than years of absence. Between Conner and Murphy there's blood and being grown together, there's bandages and the sound of his brother screaming, there's a rough battle warm kiss and identical crosses worn around their necks.

Growing up, their mother used to tell them that only God would love two assholes like them. She'd slap the backs of their palms with her wooden spoon and shoo them off to go make trouble _outside her house, Conner, and don't you dare touch that, Murphy, or your hide'll pay._ The church had always been willing to take them in, even when they didn't deserve it, and even now, they hear the church's call and follow it like sailors to the rocks of a siren's isle. They always kneel to pray, kiss the ankles of their lord with wet lips, and never enter the confessional.

Their sins are too great, and what would a man of God say? Conner has never tried, and remembers only that his last confession was for drinking and swearing, for cheating his brother out of a round of drinks, for kissing Kelly Murphy. He had not known then that it would be the last time God would forgive him and that he would learn about the heat of a fired round, how the shining shells was hot, too hot to be touched right away.

His Da would show them how newly fired shells burned skin, how he could catch them in his hand through gloves, but otherwise, he'd just end up wounded. Later, when they put their father in the ground using money that came from evil men -- now dead evil men -- there will be new blood, controlled bleeds that come with new black lines across their backs.

Usually it's Conner that checks the new marks, their new injuries, their new tattoos. This time, they've both gotten their father's crucifix tattooed broad across their shoulders, circle at the cross, and it's Celtic, it's home, it's them. When they got it, it was supposed to represent the three of them, but now Murphy's rubbing salve into the tender wounds, and whichever of them thought it would be a good idea to get such a huge fucking tattoo just because their Da died is going to pay.

"It was you, you fuckin' baby." Murphy dips his fingers in again and mutters, "Charlie fuckin' Bronson here can't stand a little pain."

"Was _not_ , you fuckin' ass. I wanted to get Da's name. You wanted a fuckin' _sign._ " Connor doesn't cry out, he won't. He grits his teeth around the belt and swears in three languages because at least that'll keep his mind off of the burn, the pain. Even getting shot hasn't hurt this much, ever.

When Murphy finally finishes taping, he slaps the newly covered skin hard. Conner's up right after because it's too much to bear, that teasing from his kin. He wrestles Murph onto the bed, and even though he's used to it, the left-handed attacks still take Murphy by surprise. "I wasn't the one who couldn't stop screaming when he got Her tattooed on my neck."

Snapping his fingers against Murphy's Virgin Mary, Connor pulls off the old bandages, checking for infection, then spreading a new layer of salve thinly over the lines. He tries to think, "Da" as he spreads on the salve. Instead he thinks about the new muscles flexing under his hands, the way that Murphy seems at ease with this sort of long lasting, purposeful pain, and always so disquieted when they're dealing with bullet wounds.

Bullet wounds feel hard and fast, and if he's lucky, Conner gets a good half an hour on adrenaline, shock keeping the pain at bay until the car ride. They're used to these things, now. The sound of a bullet ripping through clothing and skin and muscle doesn't make them stop and pause at all anymore.

He's done taping Murphy's shoulders and snaps the Virgin again.

Murphy lunges at him when he gets up, but it's half-hearted at best. They're not working for a few days, waiting for the wounds to stop being a heat in the back of their skulls, waiting until they know the pimp's habits like clockwork.

Without Rocco, it's harder. With Rocco, it would have been harder still, because they would have had to deal with his fuck ups on top of their own. Being the right hand of God doesn't seem to come with any side benefits, and definitely no miracles. Murphy's tried, often enough to change piss American beer to good Irish, and it has yet to make the shite taste any better.

When they stopped in an Irish pub in New York -- jerseys covering the walls like trophies -- Murphy'd poked him and muttered that it was a tourist joint. He'd been right, but the owner'd still had some nice lager behind the bar and handed it over with a grin. A couple of the men they were eyeing had come in, loud and fearless, because even if he and Murphy had made it clear they weren't sticking to Boston, no one feared the hand of God until he was on his knees begging.

They'd been low level scum and what had tipped them over was the missing street walkers, pretty girls turning up dead so that all of their trade knew exactly who had killed them. The men had said, "Hey, more beer!" and drank American heavily. It had made Conner shake his head, made Murphy jittery. They weren't vengeful, couldn't be without losing their way, or Conner would have made the two men pay for their crimes by killing them the same way the men had killed their victims.

Still, later, when they had one of the men on his knees, his friend already dead, Conner couldn't help slamming the butt of his gun against the man's temple. They had prayed, they had shot, they had moved on.

Without Da, it feels like it did before he came to them, validation in his hands. Da had said, "This is God's work," and even if he'd known that already, Conner had knelt before his father, the smell of gunpowder, leather, and blood on his father's gloves in Conner's hair and had felt like he was receiving benediction for his killing.

Don't wait, his father had said, on his dying breath. Don't stop. It was _something_ that their Da had said the same thing Rocco had said. Rocco meant it for some payback, some revenge for the cruel speed with which he'd been killed. Their Da meant it because it was right.

Together they're learning new things about guns and weaponry. Their father had taught them so much, and like everything new they've ever learned; it was absorbed and comes out now in short bursts, pieces of truth when Murphy picks up a gun he wouldn't have known was bad before their Da taught them about crap guns and good guns and how to tell the difference.

"Don't try to sell us shit," Conner says, leaning across the counter, feeling Murphy behind him. They're black and leather now, ghosts and myths and they can't walk down the street wearing anything but the tatters of their old selves, baptized anew to this life of hurt and pain and causing it and receiving it. They wear black because when they get to the gates of Heaven, Conner knows they will be turned away with a kiss of thanks.

Spread our wings, Murphy says. Spread our blackened wings, Conner corrects.

The guy gives them two good guns and doesn't charge them. A while ago, maybe he would have, but Conner knows that his eyes must look like Murphy's do now: dark with all of the death they've wrought, and hot with the conviction of crusaders.

Like angels. Like saints. Too many days ago, Conner had shifted under the shadow of that name, bucking hard against putting his name next to Paul and Peter, now he's realized that he has to wear it because people will not believe who they are otherwise. They are the sound of beating wings, a bullet in the head, ringing copper pennies placed on the eyes of sinners. They are retribution, they are judgement, they are justice. He wears those claims easily.

We know pain, he wants to tell people on the street, we know sin and guilt so that you won't. He feels the handle of his gun through his glove familiarly. Finishes, "In Nomine Patris, Et Fili, Et Spiritus Sancti." And squeezes. He doesn't need to wait, to look; he _feels_ that Murphy is doing it, too.

Sometimes, when it's them and leather and bullets, he holds himself back and lets who he has become, who _they_ have become, take over. They are the same person sometimes. They are four hands, two voices, four guns, and an infinite number of bullets.

In Chicago, they went to a church and nuns prayed with them, tears running down the women's faces as they looked to God for salvation for them. Conner had never felt so guilty as he did when he saw the salt of holy women dropping onto the carpet for them, for their mission, for their faith. They stayed two days there, bread and water only. Murphy was sweating droplets and shaking when they got out. "Let's go get a beer," he said.

"Aye," Conner had said. He had looked up at the angels carved high on the face of the church and said, "It's a good day to be alive."

"'Tis," Murphy'd said, lighting a cigarette.

Later that day, they'd taken the lives of five men, five bad men, men who kept children in cages for fun, men who looked out with the dead eyes of cruel, evil men. For all of the men that they have killed, Conner has never seen his brother look at him with eyes like that.

Asleep, sometimes, he kisses his brother's forehead, says, "Take me, but don't take him," to the stained ceiling. More than Murphy can, Conner worries that when they go, it will not be quietly like their father did. It will be loud and unjust with the sound of hot rounds coming out of his guns.

He always prays that it is the sinful that take him, for he would not want to be the good man who takes them down. They are the vengeful angels of God, and there will be some retribution for their death. It's one of the many weights that Conner bears.

Days like this, it is worth it.

*****

end.  



End file.
